


emails to myself

by ravaged_by_fandom



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Ficlets, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-08
Updated: 2014-10-08
Packaged: 2018-02-20 09:17:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,609
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2423405
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ravaged_by_fandom/pseuds/ravaged_by_fandom
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is a collection of odds and ends I've emailed to myself ever since I got into Supernatural. You should give them a shot because I am a goddamn treasure.</p>
            </blockquote>





	emails to myself

Dean came home from his one night stand with Aaron to find Castiel evasive and filled with tension. He pointedly ignored Dean and went into his room, slamming the door. Dean immediately followed to investigate. "What stick's up your ass?"

Castiel was silent for a moment, then let out an angry sigh. "I'm experiencing an emotion I've never felt before." He paused, but Dean didn't speak. "Actually, I have felt it before, but when I was an angel, it was ... muted. I didn't understand it then, either, but I was too caught up in my duties to question it." He stared at his hands in his lap.

"When did you feel it before?"

Castiel didn't respond.

"Can you ... describe what you're feeling?"

"Angry, frustrated ... Almost possessive."

Dean's eyebrows shot up. "Uh huh ... And when did you notice these ... feelings?"

"When I realized you hadn't come home this morning."

Dean's lips quirked up slightly at Castiel calling the bunker "home," but then the rest of the sentence clicked. "Wait, what?"

"Where were you last night, Dean?"

Dean suddenly knew where this was going. "Cas, when did you feel like this as an angel?"

"Where were you?" Castiel demanded again, his voice tighter.

"Cas, answer the question!"

Castiel looked at the floor. "When you kissed Anna in the barn."

Dean fought the urge to grin. "Really?"

Castiel nodded forlornly.

"So what if I told you I was with a guy last night? All night."

Castiel's fists balled up and his body was taut with tension. "That makes me upset."

Dean started to chuckle at Castiel's directionless, impotent frustration.

Castiel's head shot up and he leveled Dean with a bitchface to rival even Sam's. "What is so funny about this, Dean?"

Dean laughed even harder; Castiel was adorable when he was angry and could no longer smite Dean for his insolence. "You're jealous!" he eventually managed through his chuckles.

Castiel looked at him quizzically. "Jealous? Why would I be jealous?"

~*~

Sam watched as Dean closed the space between himself and Castiel, then glanced at Sam to make sure he wasn't looking. Sam quickly directed his attention back to the book in his hands, but when Dean turned back to Castiel, he peaked from the corner of his eye. Dean leaned in close, meeting Castiel's eyes and mouthed, "I love you." Castiel smiled and returned the phrase. Dean's lips twitched into the tiniest smile before he landed a quick peck to the corner of Castiel's mouth, then moved away. Sam fought the grin forming, but lost.

"What are you smilin' about, Samantha?" Dean groused as he passed.

"Not a damn thing," Sam laughed.

~*~

Castiel decorated his side of the room with Ansel Adams prints they found at a thrift store. He enjoyed looking at these representations of God's awesome creations, and he secretly hoped Dean would take him there one day, should they ever have a hunt nearby. Dean realized this and was already researching unusual activity in the area.

~*~

Dean Winchester, self-proclaimed heterosexual and renowned ladies man, sat in the local gay bar, nursing a beer and pondering how it had come to this. He remembered Aaron's hesitant smile and seemingly innocuous offer, along with his own stuttering clumsy mess of a response. Dean had to admit, he had been tempted by the offer, and then ultimately disappointed at Aaron's dismissive reveal. But Dean knew it ran much deeper than that; went much farther back in his own history. And do not even get Dean started on Cas (whatever the hell was happening there, he had yet to figure out), but Dean would be lying if he didn't admit that part of his attraction to Aaron had stemmed from his "peach fuzz."

So now, after years of fairly aggressive repression, Dean had left Sam at the bunker (his nose buried in some thick, dusty tome written in what appeared to Dean to be gibberish) and located the nearest gay-friendly hangout. It was just an experiment, really; no pressure. If Dean felt uncomfortable, he could just leave. But there was pressure. Dean was itching for physical intimacy; it had admittedly been awhile, and if he were going to seek out another casual encounter, why not use the opportunity to put his bicuriosity to the test?

Of course, the reality was far different, and Dean found himself noisily crunching bar nuts as he surveyed this new frontier. He was used to bars, probably moreso than was necessarily healthy, but they were familiar, known. This one, however, was populated almost entirely by men Dean may have mocked in his misguided and incredibly fearful youth.

As Dean swept his eyes once again over the crowd, hoping one of them might catch his eye and offer him a reprieve from his floundering, a roguish voice lilted from behind him, "First time, huh?"

Dean turned sharply, only to meet the eyes of a handsome man roughly his age, flashing him a charming smile. Dean knew that smile; had used it quite a few times himself to much approval. "Definitely not my first rodeo, cowboy," Dean replied with a grin, hiding behind the casual attitude he always relied on to diffuse tense situations.

The man chuckled warmly and sat himself at the barstool next to Dean. "I meant, is it your first time in a gay bar?" the man replied.

Dean huffed a small laugh. "'S it really that obvious?"

"You've got virgin written all over you."

"I find that hard to believe." Dean took a healthy swallow of his beer. "Yeah, its my first time," he admitted. "Is that strange?"

"Not at all," the stranger smiled. "Plenty of guys don't figure it out 'til later, or were too scared to admit it earlier. Which camp are you?"

"Honestly, I might be a little of both."

"Double entendre intended?" he laughed.

Dean sat his bottle down on the bar. "You gotta save those kinds of terms for my brother."

"Nah, you look like a clever guy. Pretty handsome, too." He took on a sly expression.

"Nice try," Dean grinned, "but you're flirting with the master. Its gonna take more than that to get into my pants."

"Then I guess I'll just have to try harder."

Dean swallowed thickly. Outwardly, he seemed to be taking this like a champ, but that was just the trademark Dean Winchester charm he employed in sticky situations; Dean was way out of his depth, and it was freaking him out. The guy was attractive, Dean could admit, and he was obviously interested in Dean for more than his conversational witticisms, but Dean wasn't sure he was ready for this. Or if he would ever be ready for this. Or even what "this" was. The situation was quickly spiraling out of control.

~*~

Eventually, Dean remembered what he had realized driving beside his brother in the Impala on some dusty back road all those years ago; that his brother was a grown man who could make his own decisions. He thought back on all that they had suffered, the grief and loss and their own frequent demises. He thought about how Sammy had never wanted all this in the first place, yet he had been doomed from the start. And now they were here, and Sam wanted out; Sam had a chance for happiness and normalcy. It cut Dean to the core, because he raised Sammy, protected him, clothed him and fed him, and it had never occurred to him that Sam was the center of Dean's own little universe. What hurt the most, though, was that he was not the same to Sammy, but that was okay. Sam had done enough for him, died enough for him, to prove that he loved Dean no matter what. It was time to let go. So they went their separate ways. As Dean hit the road with Cas, his own broken angel, he realized it was time for him to be selfish in a different way. Cas smiled as Dean watched him fondly from the other side of the Impala. Still, the brothers were never apart for long. Dean and Cas took breaks from hunting for all the important holidays, visiting Sam and his wife and eventually, their children. Every so often, Sam would catch Dean checking under their entrance rug to ensure the devil's trap was still in working order. Sam would level him with one of his trademark looks, and Dean would brush it off, reminding him that he was still his big brother. But as the years wore on, Sam caught him less and less frequently, until one night he saw Dean, nursing a beer bottle, toe idly at the rug. As he looked up and saw Sam, he smiled fondly before walking away to envelop Cas in an embrace. Sam smiled, too. Dean and Cas never had children, which Sam thought was unfair, because he knew Dean would have made a great dad, but there were no better uncles to Sam's own children. They all grew old, the hunter lifestyle slowly left behind, though never entirely for Dean, who couldn't really be comfortable as long as there were still people to save. In the end, they left no visible marks of their existence. Not too many people were left to remember them, but they knew, in those quiet comfortable moments, that they had saved people, even the world a couple of times, but mostly that they had saved each other. Even though there was never any thanks, these final years with each other, finally happy and at peace, were good enough. They had family, and in the end, that was all that really mattered.


End file.
